How Social Media Made the World’s Biggest Working Quarry Exhibition Even Bigger

Hillhead is the world’s biggest working quarry exhibition. In 2016, organisers QMJ wanted to use social media to help raise awareness of the event and to drive traffic to their registration page. As QMJ’s appointed social media partners, we used Twitter and LinkedIn to connect with the target audience.

This year they saw a 7% increase on previous show’s attendance, with 18,600 unique visitors at the show. This made Hillhead 2016 one of the biggest ever in the show’s history.

To meet their social media needs, Hillhead chose Status Social, the East Midlands’ only specialist social media consultancy. Our objectives were to raise awareness amongst the target audience in the run up to Hillhead, while directing traffic to the registration page.

Strategy and Results

On Twitter, we reached out to the show’s exhibitors and engaged with their audience. This caused their follower numbers to surge.

During the show’s three day run, Hillhead’s tweets were seen more than 93,000 times, with regular visitor interaction.

We engaged directly with influencers from the quarrying community, many of whom were due to exhibit at Hillhead that year. This meant that Hillhead’s content was shared a large number of times on a daily basis. It was seen then engaged with by the target audience.

In a three month campaign, the Twitter profile and its tweets were viewed collectively over 495,000 times, with more than 1,700 link clicks through to the Hillhead website.

At the same time we managed Hillhead’s LinkedIn profiles. Every day we posted content carefully worded and formatted to suit the LinkedIn audience. In just three months we grew the group members from 43 to 231 people, many of whom were decision makers in the quarrying industry. Our most successful post received 826 views.

The Power of Twitter

Thanks to Twitter, we even managed to help out one of the visitors who didn’t have an umbrella:

As a result, exhibitors offered shelter, drinks and umbrellas to the visitor giving them a great opportunity for engagement:

Eventually, the visitor was rescued:

From book festivals to beer festivals, our social media management has helped a huge variety of events to spread the word, engage with their attendees and reach the next level of success.